Something I don't think I mentioned in my other post in this thread is a rocking index. I want to be able to find Creamy Asparagus Pasta under pasta, silken tofu, and asparagus. Indexes that are cross-referenced by major ingredient make me very, very happy.

Some quick dinners for one. I make 2 dinners at the weekend then freeze 3 servings of each for dinners during the week but occasionally I am a silly mare and forget to take something out of the freezer for that night. I tend to be low on time after I get home from work so don't have the time to be messing around for 2 hours in the kitchen.

Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 8120Location: United States of New England

for those of you that have a hard time guesstimating weight when given in a recipe, buy a small postal scale.i have one that i bought to keep track of my guinea pigs' weights and i also now use it for cooking (like when a recipe i was making yesterday called for a pound of powdered sugar rather than how many cups, that was weird, what recipe does that with sugar?)cause i would have no clue what a pound of mushrooms would look like either!

you can put a bowl on the scale, press the tare button to zero the weight out, then add whatever it is you need to measure and VOILA!

i also use the scales at the grocery store in the produce section but that requires some forethought on my part which usually doesnt happen

Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 8120Location: United States of New England

Kelvia wrote:

Something I don't think I mentioned in my other post in this thread is a rocking index. I want to be able to find Creamy Asparagus Pasta under pasta, silken tofu, and asparagus. Indexes that are cross-referenced by major ingredient make me very, very happy.

yes!!! i dont know how much work that entails for an author (sorry) but i couldnt agree more.most of the time i forget what a recipe was called so i have to look it up by a main ingredient.it's also good for say when your garden pops out 1000 zucchini's at a time (ie not my garden) and you just want to look up zucchini recipes :-)

I don't know if this was mentioned already, but kid-friendly foods would be awesome. I haven't been cooking as much lately (OK, hardly at all) because every time I do, all I get are whiny kids saying, "I don't like this, I want something else!"

I own a LOT of cookbooks so I am mainly interested in a book that doesn't duplicate what I already have.

To that end, what I'd love to see is:- A quick start guide. You know how sometimes when you open up an appliance there's a big boring manual with lots of info and a little one-page thing telling you the bare minimum you need to get started right away? IMO every cookbook should have something similar to that. Just a "here are a couple unique recipes that are really great and use ingredients you probably already have lying around the house; why don't you try them first?" or a "hey, pick these up at the grocery store and you'll be able to get started with these recipes" or even a shopping list for one dinner meal I can make this very night if I get my butt to the store by 4pm. Just a little one or two page motivational thing to get me to cook something right away out of a cookbook, because in my experience, either I'll buy it and make a million things right away or I'll put it off a week and then I just never use it very much.

- As yet another person with a toddler and a husband who works unpredictable hours and just in general not having a ton of free time or a ton of control over my time, I have to say yes yes yes to more casserole type things. But not the kind of casseroles where you basically have to make two or more separate recipes, THEN layer them in a baking dish, THEN bake that for 45 minutes.. There's a place for these, like when I double them and future me loves past me, that's fine... But what I really want for a weeknight is to throw a bunch of stuff in a baking dish without a bunch of pre-cooking. Like 40 Clove Chickpeas, or some of the Vegan on the Cheap (Robin Robertson) casseroles like tortilla strata and baked ziti. Or something I can throw in my rice cooker (tonight's meal was a box of jambalaya mix, chopped onion, pepper, seitan, and celery, all thrown in the rice cooker).

- Maybe tips on expanding a dish to be a one-pot meal, or contracting it to be a side. A lot of weekdays I just don't feel like making a ton of stuff, so if I bother to make a salad, it's getting some protein and grain thrown in and maybe an avocado to make it more filling. Can that pilaf get a veggie or two plus some seitan to turn it into a filing one dish meal? Suggest combos!

- PANTRY recipes, clearly marked as such. I would love a chapter of recipes that I can make with ONLY nonperishable and/or freezer ingredients. Get crazy with canned beans and mori-nu please! There are so many days when I'm willing to cook but just don't have the energy/compliant toddler to make it to a grocery store. Give me a bunch of ideas for can of beans + pasta or rice + freezer bag of mixed vegetables and I will start the church of Isa. Mixes I can do up ahead are awesome too - like in those meal in a jar type books, where you throw some rice and dried veggies and spices into a ziplock, then write "bring to boil with 1c water, simmer for 20 min" or whatever in a sharpie. Basically, I love recipes that give me something to make when I feel like I have no food in the house.

- Expensive fancy-pants ingredients that I will only use for one recipe ever should be kept to a minimum. I feel like they generally are in your cookbooks, though! That is awesome.

- Fairly hearty and substantial lunches I can make for husband (to pack) and myself (to eat at home later) in <15 minutes. My current rut is basically: seitan cheesesteaks, tofu po' vegans, green salads w/ various fixings and a tub of dressing, asian noodles (peanut or teriyaki) w/ veg and tofu/seitan, or leftovers from the night before.

Lately I'm not eating well at work (too busy in the morning to prepare something/way too busy at work to go out), so I would LOVE some more recipes that taste good cold and used as leftovers. We do have a microwave but I don't swing that way, and I like the taste of some dishes-- all salads, some curries, tofu dishes, and veg side dishes cold. So go ahead and heed my specific and selfish request. :)

I don't know whether it's too late, but I am a total failure as a vegan, and I need all of the help I can get. Besides being too lazy to cook three times a day, which often leads to bad things happening, such as cheesecake and pizza somehow ending up inside my mouth, my biggest vice is Doritos. I would like fast, easy, and cheap one dish meals, easy snack and sack lunch ideas that don't necessarily need refrigeration, and vegan Doritos please! :o)

Late to the party here I think, but CAKE!Also lots of options on recipes. I love recipes which are a base for experimentation. So a basic reliable recipe and options for a Thai version, one with lots of spice, one that looks impressive for a party.Talking of which I'd love some posh looking recipes for feeding to people if they come over for supper. And yes- shiitake and asparagus recipe too, in a crepe!

I don't know whether it's too late, but I am a total failure as a vegan, and I need all of the help I can get. Besides being too lazy to cook three times a day, which often leads to bad things happening, such as cheesecake and pizza somehow ending up inside my mouth, my biggest vice is Doritos. I would like fast, easy, and cheap one dish meals, easy snack and sack lunch ideas that don't necessarily need refrigeration, and vegan Doritos please! :o)

Hee, there are vegan Doritos and there are also Tias which are yummy and don't have anything chemically or weird in them.

I'm trying to learn to like seaweed. The sea is just so far from Kansas that it's really hard not to find anything remotely fishy or oceany, well, stinky! I'm hoping that if I keep eating it, seaweed will grow on me.

I sauteed hijiki with carrot, onion, and cabbage with soy sauce, maple syrup, and lemon juice. I put some soba noodles and sesame seeds in it, too. I was going by a recipe in Chloe's Kitchen, but I added the cabbage and noodles to cut the fishy taste a bit, because I can't handle hijiki full throttle yet.

Use coconut cream instead! Its fat content is calibrated for maximum deliciousness.

I really like it when recipes give you a basic recipe and then a load of variations.

I really like the layout in your books, by the way. It bothers me when every other page is pictures (as opposed to a clump of pictures in the middle of all the best things), which a lot of "celebrity" cookery books tend to have. There's something lovely and clean about the Veganomicon. It's fuss-free, which is what I like.

_________________Moon - "This is the best recipe in the history of recipes forever."